In Olden Days (Italian: Altri tempi) is a 1952 Italian comedy drama anthology film directed by Alessandro Blasetti and featuring an ensemble cast that included Gina Lollobrigida, Amedeo Nazzari, Vittorio De Sica, Elisa Cegani, Barbara Florian, Aldo Fabrizi, Andrea Checchi and Alba Arnova. It was shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Dario Cecchi and Veniero Colasanti. It is also known as Times Gone By and Infidelity.
Contents
Plot
The cart of old books
A good-natured peddler of old books shows his customers some works from the past and is pranked by the rowdy son of a newsagent.
Excelsior dance
Filmed reconstruction of the Excelsior Ball, an allegorical late-century dance by the composer Romualdo Marenco performed for the first time at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 11 January 1881.
Less than a day
Two lovers, for contingent reasons, manage to see each other in a hotel room once a year, for a few hours, but due to some quarrels and jealousies they are unable to consume their relationship.
The Sardinian drummer
During the first war of independence fought against the Austrians, a very young drummer, delivering an important message to the Italian command, is hit and loses a leg (episode from the book "Cuore").
Matter of interest
Two peasants scramble for possession of manure dung.
The idyll
Tender summer idyll between two children from upper-class families. Guido, because of a kiss given to the sweet Greek girl Filli, wonders if the kiss could have generated a child and also fears for his maid, who had a baby without being married. With the end of the summer comes the painful separation.
The vice
A trader discovers his wife's cheating with his business partner. Upon returning home, at first he pretends nothing has happened, then with an excuse he sends the maid away and after denying his wife her forgiveness, threatening to take her children away from her, induces her to take her life.
Potpourri of songs
Story of a happy courtship and marriage, enlivened by the birth of a child and concluded with the departure of her husband for the war, from which she may not return.
The songs to which the title refers are Lo specio me ga finger, Oh Trieste, oh blessed Trieste, Forbidden Music, Un peu d'amour, Le valse bleu, Baciami baciami, Santa Lucia and Tripoli bel suol d'amore.
The Trial of Phryne
Naples. A commoner is tried for trying to poison her husband and mother-in-law together. Thanks to her irrepressible beauty, the defense attorney appointed ex officio succeeds with an inspired and vehement harangue to overturn the situation, dragging the public and jurors to the side of the accused.
Obtained from a short story by Edoardo Scarfoglio, and referring to an ancient story of the ethereal Phryne, he remained famous above all because Vittorio De Sica, in the role of the defender of the prosperous graces of a commoner (played by Gina Lollobrigida), coined the term "increased physics" which will in fact mark an era and will be widely used throughout the 1950s and most of the 1960s. The exact reference, in the sentence pronounced in the film by De Sica during the speech, is: "increased physics" as opposed to the phrase "psychic handicapped".
Vittorio De Sica in this episode is at his first appearance alongside Gina Lollobrigida; both actors, the following year, will seize great popularity as the marshal and the bersagliera in the film Bread, love and fantasy directed by Luigi Comencini.
It should only be noted that the scene of the "trial in court" for Italian cinema is an unmissable event, starting with the forerunners. Defendant, get up! by Mario Mattoli (1939) with Erminio Macario up to San Giovanni taken off by Amleto Palermi (1940) with Totò, and in this film he finds a fundamental scene for aficionados. Later scenes of trials will make the fortune of Nando Mericoni "American in Rome" (Alberto Sordi) in the duology of Stefano Vanzina Un giorno in magistrale (1953) and Un americano a Roma (1954), up to Christian De Sica who in 1984 will pay an explicit homage to this scene played by his father, as Praetor of the film Mi fa causa (1984).
Cast
Il carrettino dei libri vecchi
Aldo Fabrizi: the street vendor of ancient books;
Pina Renzi: the newsagent
Enzo Staiola: his son
Luigi Cimara: gentleman on the convertible
Marisa Merlini: lady on the convertible
Galeazzo Benti: her lover
Mario Riva: the fussy customer
Ballo Excelsior
Alba Arnova: the Progress
Carlo Mazzone-Clementi: the Obscurantism
Anna Maria Bugliari: Italy
Mirdza Capanna: the Light
Antonio Acqua: the Science
Dino Raffaelli: the Art
Filippo Morucci: Alessandro Volta
Meno di un giorno
Alba Arnova: Matilde
Andrea Checchi: Camillo
Gondrano Trucchi: the station master
Bruno Corelli: the waiter
Gabriele Tinti: the young man on the train
Silvio Bagolini: the guide
Il Tamburino Sardo
Enzo Cerusico: il tamburino
Vittorio Vaser: il capitano
Attilio Tosato: il sergente
Guido Celano: il tenente
Ugo Sasso: a soldier
Yvonne Cocco: a nun
Pietro Tordi: un infermiere
Questioni d'interesse
Arnoldo Foà: il contadino
Folco Lulli: l'altro contadino
Mario Mazza: il carabiniere
L'idillio
Maurizio Di Nardo: Guido
Geraldina Parriniello: Filli
Paolo Stoppa: Guido's father
Rina Morelli: Guido's mother
Sergio Tofano: Guido's grandfather
Jone Morino: Maddalena
La morsa
Amedeo Nazzari: Andrea Fabbri
Elisa Cegani: Giulia, his wife
Roldano Lupi: Antonio Serra, her lover
Goliarda Sapienza: Anna, la domestica
Pot-pourri di canzoni
Barbara Florian: the bride
Elio Pandolfi: lo sposo
Amalia Pellegrini: the grandmother
Oscar Andriani: the father
Elena Altieri: la moglie del maggiore
Gian Aldo Bettoni: il maggiore
Il processo di Frine
Gina Lollobrigida: Maria Antonia Desiderio
Vittorio De Sica: l'avvocato difensore
Arturo Bragaglia: il pubblico ministero
Giovanni Grasso jr.: il presidente del tribunale
Turi Pandolfini: primo cancelliere
Armando Annuale: secondo cancelliere
Vittorio Caprioli: il farmacista
Dante Maggio: un testimone
Umberto Sacripante
Liana Del Balzo
Alberto Talegalli
Alfredo Rizzo
Alberto Sorrentino